[macvillage.net]

Ok, I need to rant a little bit after reading some real bad press for a long time, and hearing some real smart web developers make @$$es of themselves (and I am not talking about you guys, but Windows users mostly). Some people are just driving me crazy with ignorance.

Netscape Communicator and Mozilla are not by any means bad browsers. The reason why everyone hates them is because they show who is good at web design (and I refer to coding, not looks) and who sucks at it.

A good designer is one who can make a good, usable web page, and a visually pleasing page that will load properly no matter what the condition is.

If a web page loads properly in Netscape and Mozilla, it will load properly no matter in all of the smaller browsers (iCab, OmniWeb, HotJava, etc.) I have only seen a few cases that prove otherwise. And why is everyone so reliant on CSS to perform things that I could have done with HTML 1.0? Is it maybe because they don't know HTML and use editors such as GoLive and Dreamweaver?

I hate it when people say "It costs extra for support of another browser than IE 5.5" I wouldn't use that designer for my life. Why would I pay someone who knows nothing about their job? A good designer can design a page that works in anything. So for anyone getting a website... make sure they promise the page will load correctly in both IE and Netscape... NO EXCUSES.

I also hate flash abusers. You know who I am talking about. Those designers who design the whole site, in flash, and don't even provide an HTML alternative. It takes a 56k users 10 minutes to get an email address of the bottom of the page because they need to load a whole site to get that email address. They even make just plain text in flash. And since the whole page is in flash, the user needs at least a decent video card, and a 200Mhz processor to view the page. How can someone pay for this work? And miss a serious part of your audience. A good designer ensures that 100% of the web can at least get the information they need quickly and effectively, regardless of the computer they use.

These people make me sick. And those who aren't mentioned in this post... ROCK ON!

[Raman]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:

You: And why is everyone so reliant on CSS to perform things that I could have done with HTML 1.0?

Me: Because sometimes CSS makes for less amount of code than putting font tags around each and every paragraph, among other things. Also, sometimes there is no HTML 4.01 equivalent to something that CSS can do. Sometimes people come to expect classic, understated looking pages to the plain vanilla times new roman default font and stupid solid table borders. That's why

You:I hate it when people say "It costs extra for support of another browser than IE 5.5"

Me: Try telling the client that it will take you (cost them) more time to make sure it works in a browser that is less standards compatible, and has 1/10th the market share according to web statistics. Sometimes it's not the designer's fault. Money talks.

You: A good designer can design a page that works in anything. So for anyone getting a website... make sure they promise the page will load correctly in both IE and Netscape... NO EXCUSES.

Me: See above. Often the people that pay for and sign off on the Analysis phase, Requirements, Statement of Work don't even realize that people are using other browsers. Sometimes the business itself is a M$ shop so they diss other browsers on purpose. The designer laughs but can't do anything about it except work on his/her own time to make it compatible with browsers other than those stated by the Authorizer of the work.

You: I also hate flash abusers. You know who I am talking about. Those designers who design the whole site, in flash, and don't even provide an HTML alternative.

Me: Its the only way they can guarantee that everyone will see the site the way they intended instead of coding all hours of the night making sure it works in every browser. Often the flash guru's are NOT PROGRAMMERS - they DON'T often know how to and don't give a rats a$$ about coding. They just want to ensure that everyone that can see it see's it the same way. They don't care that NN4.76's 100% TD means 100% of the innerwidth vs. IE 5.x 100%TD means 100% of the available width. Even coders like myself don't like it. Why not follow the published w3c standards and keep everyone happy


You: [more flash stuff snipped] How can someone pay for this work? And miss a serious part of your audience. A good designer ensures that 100% of the web can at least get the information they need quickly and effectively, regardless of the computer they use.

Me: This is easy. The intended audience might not be modem users. It might not be 100% of all web users. It might be only those that have fast enough connections and flash-enabled browsers with 200watt speakers turned on full blast. An important part of the Analysis phase is talking about the intended audience. If the inteded audience is 14-20 year olds with the latest computers then guess what? There will probably be alot of Flash.

Me still: Also you'll notice that if someone is good at Flash, many of their websites will contain Flash in them. I suck at flash, therefore I have none of the aformentioned plain-text in flash on any site i did. I'm pretty good at basic graphics with alot of help from Fireworks so most of the sites I do end up being sites with heavy back-end database, asp, php, etc stuff with ho-hum graphics. I'm a programmer.

Me again: Anyway. Just want to be the devil's advocate. I totally agree with you on all your points, but many designers and developers work for a company with non-technical people making technical decisions no matter what anyone technical says (but of course, if we told them how to make managerial decisions they'd tilt their heads to the side and look at us like a dumbfounded puppy wondering where we get off telling them how to do their jobs).

Take a chill pill

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by Raman:
Me: Its the only way they can guarantee that everyone will see the site the way they intended instead of coding all hours of the night making sure it works in every browser. Often the flash guru's are NOT PROGRAMMERS - they DON'T often know how to and don't give a rats a$$ about coding. They just want to ensure that everyone that can see it see's it the same way. They don't care that NN4.76's 100% TD means 100% of the innerwidth vs. IE 5.x 100%TD means 100% of the available width. Even coders like myself don't like it. Why not follow the published w3c standards and keep everyone happy
[/QB]

It's not really going to be seen by 100%. You have those with 56k modems who don't want to wait for the whole thing to load (say 10%, and that is being nice). Those who don't have a fast enough processor to view a full page flash animation (say another 10%)

That's 20% who won't see it. And I am being kind. Statiscally, a surfer waits 10 - 20 seconds for the page to load (not "Loading...") before they move on. Calculate that the average user has a 56k modem, and see how large that flash animation can be? A whole flash site? Not on your life.


My point really is. Consumers be careful. There are too many designers who won't provide good service. Get someone who will. There is no reason to go with one of these con artists who give you the "it's only a small percentage of your audience that you lose." Only a small portion of visitors become customers, so everyone counts.

[Demonhood]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
Netscape Communicator and Mozilla are not by any means bad browsers. The reason why everyone hates them is because they show who is good at web design (and I refer to coding, not looks) and who sucks at it.

Not necessarily. Some people hate NS/Mozilla because they crash all the time. Some people hate NS 4.x because it doesn't support quite a few spiffy CSS declarations (like hover. not essential, just annoying). NS 4.x is missing a lot of features that IE 5 already has. Granted, IE 5 is more forgiving with code, but IE 5 also doesn't throw a tissy fit when you press return before closing a table cell (it looks nicer when you edit it, but NS sometimes screws up the table anyway).
I do like Mozilla, however. It has come a long way. It's not there yet, but it's close.

And why is everyone so reliant on CSS to perform things that I could have done with HTML 1.0? Is it maybe because they don't know HTML and use editors such as GoLive and Dreamweaver?

Some maybe. You could use HTML for font types/size/etc.. but it's much much more convenient to use CSS. You can update an entire site be editing one file. Handy. People that use CSS for everything are probably using some WYSIWYG. That, or they're completely mad.

A good designer can design a page that works in anything. So for anyone getting a website... make sure they promise the page will load correctly in both IE and Netscape... NO EXCUSES.

Tell that to employers. If something works in IE and not NS, they'll likely tell you to just leave it alone since IE owns the market now.

I also hate flash abusers. You know who I am talking about. Those designers who design the whole site, in flash, and don't even provide an HTML alternative. It takes a 56k users 10 minutes to get an email address of the bottom of the page because they need to load a whole site to get that email address. They even make just plain text in flash. And since the whole page is in flash, the user needs at least a decent video card, and a 200Mhz processor to view the page. How can someone pay for this work? And miss a serious part of your audience. A good designer ensures that 100% of the web can at least get the information they need quickly and effectively, regardless of the computer they use.

I use flash. I enjoy the sparse use of flash. Flash, if used correctly, can be very small (KB-wise). And 90%+ of users already have the plugin installed. I'm not going to make my site 100% compatible for lynx users (altho it mostly is). That'd just be silly.

But you have some good points. People need to have tighter code. Sloppy just won't do anymore (from our perspective. sloppy is just fine to IE 5+).

[macvillage.net]

I to love Mozilla, it hasn't crashed yet (vers 0.9.2) and it renders fast, and exactly how I want, to the standards. I don't think the general complaint is the crashing though. Webmasters have used to many "you need IE 4 or later to view this site" and pushed people in that general direction, and IE being bundled in Netscape didn't help. Webmasters can be real lazy. People use IE because that is the only browser that will render the site correctly.

An example of a well designed site is MacNN. I have tried it in many browsers, iCab, Netscape, HotJava, IE, Mozilla, and it all works good. That is good coding.

Originally posted by Demonhood:
<STRONG>

I use flash. I enjoy the sparse use of flash. Flash, if used correctly, can be very small (KB-wise). And 90%+ of users already have the plugin installed. I'm not going to make my site 100% compatible for lynx users (altho it mostly is). That'd just be silly.
</STRONG>

Bingo. the word sparce means a lot. That is what it is intended for. It is intended to be a replacement for graphics. Not a replacment for HTML.


Remember that most businesses still use netscape. It's the only Mac/Win/Linux solution that allows for remote saving of profiles. That's a very important feature to many businesses. Newer Mac only systems can use Mac OS X server and save profiles on that, but if you are cross platform, netscape is the only way to have profiles stick no matter what you use.


My real point is that there is no reason that someone should settle for having a designer that designs sites for only one browser. There are too many good designers who can do an awesome job and make it universal. People shouldn't settle for a site that only works in one browser, and pay just as much. To many designers like us, can do both browsers, and promise near 100% compatibility.

[AlbertWu]

All the stuff I do looks GREAT in mozilla. Communicator, however, is lacking in standards support, crashy, and by all means an incomplete browser.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by AlbertWu:
<STRONG>...Communicator, however, is lacking in standards support, crashy, and by all means an incomplete browser.</STRONG>

Could you post a few links of examples. I am curious. I am trying to figure out was is crashing Netscape Communicator exactly (since the engineers are a bit slow to do so) I think it is just excessive JavaScript and CSS that do it, or at least in most cases, but I think there are a few things that I am missing.

[RubberDucky]

Could you post a few links of examples. I am curious. I am trying to figure out was is crashing Netscape Communicator exactly (since the engineers are a bit slow to do so) I think it is just excessive JavaScript and CSS that do it, or at least in most cases, but I think there are a few things that I am missing.

Try almost *any* CSS. CSS is part of the HTML spec. Netscape 4.x tends to crash when people use relative positioning (perfectly valid HTML), it uses a proprietary &lt;layers&gt; tag to accomplish things that should be accomplished using DIVs, and it's slow.

If you prefer to work within the limits of HTML 1.0, that's fine with me. Just don't be surprised when the rest of the internet passes you by (like it already has).

BTW: WYSIWYG editors typically suck for CSS.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by RubberDucky:
<STRONG>BTW: WYSIWYG editors typically suck for CSS.</STRONG>

That is exactly the problem.


I'm not saying that Netscape is great at CSS (we all know it's not to good) but a good designer can still make a page look presentable, without going crazy.


Someone should really take the Netscape Communicator 4.7.x codebase and embed the Gecko engine and update the interface a bit. That would be one hell of a browser.

[graphiteman]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
<STRONG>...
And why is everyone so reliant on CSS to perform things that I could have done with HTML 1.0? Is it maybe because they don't know HTML and use editors such as GoLive and Dreamweaver?
...</STRONG>

CSS is used because the &lt;FONT&gt; tag is depreciated and will be removed from the HTML standard, and CSS is an official W3C reccomendation for web page presentation.